NSW Premier returns from COVID to rozelle interchange gridlock and paramedics advocating for better pay

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The NSW Health Minister has warned triple zero could be crippled come the new year if paramedics refuse to renew their registration. Almost half of the NSW's paramedics have threatened to let their registration lapse unless their pay demands are met. It's another problem for the government which also faces the challenge of fixing Sydney’s new Rozelle interchange.

Transcript

00:00 Five days after announcing he tested positive for COVID, the Premier returns to another

00:07 kind of headache.

00:08 I'm 100 per cent.

00:10 Chris Min's congestion might have cleared, but this morning the roads in and around the

00:14 Roselle interchange had not.

00:16 If we've got a systemic or major design flaw, then I can promise you the Minister for Roads

00:21 is looking at all options.

00:22 But it seems a toll-free period isn't one of them.

00:25 My fear about the toll-free period is that in the end we'll be back to square one as

00:31 soon as the toll-free period runs out.

00:33 He says there's no deal with the toll operator, Transurban, to prevent lane configurations

00:38 being changed.

00:40 What we're seeing this week is absolute chaos, which is what we're seeing from this Labor

00:46 Government.

00:47 Parliament might have wrapped for 2023, but the Government's work is far from over if

00:51 it wants to avoid a severe shortage of paramedics from New Year's Day.

00:56 Two thousand of them are threatening to let their registration lapse at the end of the

00:59 year unless the Government agrees to a pay rise of at least 20 per cent on top of the

01:04 base public sector wage increase.

01:07 This industrial action would cripple Triple 0 and no paramedic, no union or no government

01:13 would be able to explain that to the people of New South Wales.

01:17 The Health Services Union claims it's not industrial action.

01:20 All we are doing is merely supporting our members who are taking an individual decision.

01:27 At a meeting today, the union rejected the Government's proposal of arbitration, saying

01:32 it would take too long.

01:34 Members of the smaller Australian Paramedics Association have already walked off the job,

01:38 going on strike for 12 hours today - a sign there could be bigger problems still to come.

01:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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